With Lubomir Visnovsky already injured, and Tom Gilbert likely out after getting hurt against St. Louis, the Oilers have recalled their best AHL prospect, defenseman Theo Peckham. Peckham has two NHL games to his credit, one against Columbus at the tail end of last season, and one against Pittsburgh earlier this year.

J-F Jacques is once again ready to play, so he takes up a roster spot while on his two-week conditioning stint with Springfield. His activation and the recall of Peckham necessitated sending down Ryan Potulny.

Also injured for the game against Detroit this afternoon is Shawn Horcoff, the only centre on the team with more than two seasons of NHL experience. With him out, the top line spot between Penner and Hemsky needed filling, something Kyle Brodziak did for the end of the St. Louis game. Craig MacTavish’s comments before the game indicated that he was likely to leave Brodziak in that spot, at least to begin with.

It’s an opportunity for Brodziak (the first words out of Brodziak’s mouth when asked were “It’s a big opportunity for me”). I’ve commented before on how he’s been used this season, but it’s worth repeating. For the vast majority of the year, he’s been saddled with inferior linemates (MacIntyre, Stortini, etc.) but that’s only part of the problem. Brodziak’s been starting in the defensive zone more than any other player on the team. Of his 314 non-neutral zone draws, 219 of them have been in the defensive end. That means that he’s had 124 more defensive zone draws than offensive zone draws; the next nearest Oiler is Shawn Horcoff with 86. No other player on the team has more than 40.

It’s a measure of the trust that MacTavish has in those two players that they are his go-to guys for defensive zone faceoffs.

Checking in on the other end of the blender, Marc Pouliot will centre Steve MacIntyre (asked about MacIntyre playing against Detroit, MacTavish said “we don’t have anyone else”) and Zach Stortini on the fourth line tonight, and MacTavish hinted that he didn’t trust them to play much at all against Detroit, saying that they’d likely sub in on other lines. After saying that he didn’t like Pouliot at centre, MacTavish expanded that he felt Pouliot, for all his improvements ‘needed something he can provide every night, whether it be a better defensive game, a more physical game, or more consistent offensive contribution’. He summed up by saying that while Pouliot was improving, but that his game on a whole was “vanilla”.

The bottom line though is that this Edmonton Oilers team isn’t at nearly the same level of the Red Wings when healthy, and they aren’t close to that tonight.

On the Red Wings front, significant players in Tomas Holmstron (groin) and Brad Stuart (ribs) won’t be playing this afternoon. Marian Hossa, who turned down a massive contract from the Oilers this off-season, is leading the Red Wings in goals (28) and comes to town amid rumours that he and fellow pending unrestricted free agent Johan Franzen are negotiating extensions with the Wings. The real news is that the Red Wings are hoping to sign the two “for a package price of around US$10-million per season.” The other thing worth noting is that Albertan Chris Osgood, suffering through a poor season, is not expected to start tonight, making room for ex-Oiler Ty Conklin, who has been very good over the past two seasons.

Because I’m incapable of predicting an Oilers loss, I’m going to call it a 3-2 win with Kyle Brodziak leading the way offensively and Dwayne Roloson making 436 saves (give or take 5). Chime in with your predictions below.

Jonathan Willis is a freelance writer.
He currently works for Oilers Nation, Sportsnet, the Edmonton Journal and Bleacher Report.
He's co-written three books and worked for myriad websites, including Grantland, ESPN, The Score, and Hockey Prospectus. He was previously the founder and managing editor of Copper & Blue.

Does anyone remember how in April 2007, Claude Julien was axed by the Devils, even though they were second in the conference with 107 points? The reasoning was apparently because they weren't ready for the Stanley Cup Playoffs...

So, we apparently aren't ready for an mighty-mite-exhibition game...

But in all seriousness, the Devils are cutthroat enough to axe a very successful coach (see 2008-09 Bruins, Boston), right before the playoffs begin, and our strongest argument for not axing Mac-T is because we're in the middle of a playoff "race"? It's more like a clusterf#ck to the playoffs in the West. I see no reason for keeping a coach on when you have two performances like this within 10 days of each other.

I don't mean to be a dick here, but I can't understand how you guys figured this would go any other way. I'm too lazy to do it, but I'm willing to bet if you compared the rosters man-to-man, every Detroit player would be better than every Edmonton player - or pretty darn close. The Wings are just a vastly superior team.

@ David S:
Oh I don't think anyone seriously expected a win tonight, but to be this badly out played and be down by 5 goals in the first? I think that's a little unreasonable even for our crappy ass team.

At least in previous years, the team would still show some effort. There's none here. Normally the Oilers play Detroit well.

Christ, in the 90's those sad sacks put more effort in. As a season ticket holder for 30 years, I can say that I would rather watch those games in the 90's than what I'm seeing from this current group.

No one expects a win, but we do expect to at least see some drive and effort.

@ Wej:
Mac T Apologists are people that dont know there ass from a hole in the ground Its all about the thesaurus for him..I would like to see all of them defend Mac and the boyz today...Where are you where are u ...
Mac Tea baggers...

It's games like these that I wish Ray Ferraro was doing the color, because I would love to hear him just rip into how bad the Oilers are playing right now. Oh Ray. Please come put Louie DeBrusk out of his misery.

Oh I don’t think anyone seriously expected a win tonight, but to be this badly out played and be down by 5 goals in the first? I think that’s a little unreasonable even for our crappy ass team.

Who knows. It might be pacing. The level of intensity these guys need to win against a normal team, let alone Detroit, may not be sustainable game-to-game. Maybe mentally they've checked out to play a hard one tomorrow night. Whatever. But I agree these games are hard to watch.

Okay, whoa whoa whoa. Things are looking bad, but my god man it's not that bad. Burke was right that we have a poorly run organization, but at least we are, for the most part, still competative. Although like someone said earlier our record is not indicative of our horrendous play night in and night out.

But I'm so excited for Burke to A) never have any success in Toronto and B) leave the franchise in shambles much like he did with Vancouver and now Anaheim.